Laser Synthesis of Iridium Nanospheres for Overall Water Splitting

Hai-Bin Wang; Jia-Qi Wang; Neli Mintcheva; Min Wang; Shuang Li; Jing Mao; Hui Liu; Cun-Ku Dong; Sergei A Kulinich; Xi-Wen Du

doi:10.3390/ma12183028

Laser Synthesis of Iridium Nanospheres for Overall Water Splitting

Materials (Basel). 2019 Sep 18;12(18):3028. doi: 10.3390/ma12183028.

Authors

Hai-Bin Wang¹, Jia-Qi Wang², Neli Mintcheva^{3

4}, Min Wang⁵, Shuang Li⁶, Jing Mao⁷, Hui Liu⁸, Cun-Ku Dong⁹, Sergei A Kulinich^{10

11}, Xi-Wen Du¹²

Affiliations

¹ Institute of New-Energy Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300350, China. hibwang@tju.edu.cn.
² Institute of New-Energy Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300350, China. jq_wang@tju.edu.cn.
³ Research Institute of Science and Technology, Tokai University, Hiratsuka, Kanagawa 259-1292, Japan. nnmintcheva@mgu.bg.
⁴ Department of Chemistry, University of Mining and Geology, Sofia 1700, Bulgaria. nnmintcheva@mgu.bg.
⁵ Institute of New-Energy Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300350, China. wangmin6029@126.com.
⁶ Institute of New-Energy Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300350, China. 15632301425@163.com.
⁷ Institute of New-Energy Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300350, China. maojing@tju.edu.cn.
⁸ Institute of New-Energy Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300350, China. hui_liu@tju.edu.cn.
⁹ Institute of New-Energy Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300350, China. ckdong@tju.edu.cn.
¹⁰ Research Institute of Science and Technology, Tokai University, Hiratsuka, Kanagawa 259-1292, Japan. skulinich@tokai-u.jp.
¹¹ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tokai University, Hiratsuka, Kanagawa 259-1292, Japan. skulinich@tokai-u.jp.
¹² Institute of New-Energy Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300350, China. xwdu@tju.edu.cn.

Abstract

Engineering surface structure of catalysts is an efficient way towards high catalytic performance. Here, we report on the synthesis of regular iridium nanospheres (Ir NSs), with abundant atomic steps prepared by a laser ablation technique. Atomic steps, consisting of one-atom level covering the surface of such Ir NSs, were observed by aberration-corrected high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy (HAADF-STEM). The prepared Ir NSs exhibited remarkably enhanced activity both for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in acidic medium. As a bifunctional catalyst for overall water splitting, they achieved a cell voltage of 1.535 V @ 10 mA/cm², which is much lower than that of Pt/C-Ir/C couple (1.630 V @ 10 mA/cm²).

Keywords: Ir nanoparticles; bifunctional catalyst; laser ablated nanoparticles; overall water splitting.